Anti-Trump conservative and former Naval War College professor Tom Nichols urged the Senate to reject Donald Trump's pick of former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence in a scathing article for The Atlantic.
Gabbard, who was a Democrat for years but constantly critical of her party and started supporting Trump more recently, has no qualification for the role, he warned — and has radical anti-American views that would completely undermine the intelligence community.
"Gabbard is stunningly unqualified for almost any Cabinet post ... but especially for ODNI," wrote Nichols. "She has no qualifications as an intelligence professional — literally none. (She is a reserve lieutenant colonel who previously served in the Hawaii Army National Guard, with assignments in medical, police, and civil-affairs-support positions. She has won some local elections and also represented Hawaii in Congress.) She has no significant experience directing or managing much of anything."
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Worse still, he wrote, Gabbard has spent much of her career completely disdainful of the work the intelligence community does, and of America's mission on the world stage in general.
"Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin," wrote Nichols. "Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood."
In addition to promoting conspiracy theories about the Syrian government's attacks on civilians, Gabbard has largely embraced Russian propaganda about the Ukraine war, blaming the Kremlin's unprovoked invasion on supposed aggression from NATO — whose partner nations' intelligence agencies she would have to collaborate with in this role.
Ultimately, wrote Nichols, the Senate cannot allow her to be America's spymaster, as she is a classic case of an "insider threat" government employees with security clearances are trained to spot.
"Presidents should be given deference in staffing their Cabinet," concluded Nichols. "But this nomination should be one of the handful of Trump appointments where soon-to-be Majority Leader John Thune and his Republican colleagues draw a hard line and say no — at least if they still care at all about exercising the Senate’s constitutional duty of advice and consent."